Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success

2The next pattern is going to be to get their response of “I’m okay.” “If you recall, we met last Thursday night at the Marriott,” or “If you recall, you sent in a postcard a few weeks back,” or “We’ve been reaching out to people in your area . . .” In short, you are trying to link up this call with the time you first met your prospect, or when they took an action, like filling out a postcard or clicking on a website.

3This next pattern is extremely important and is the reason for the call, yourjustifier. In essence, your justifier creates a valid reason to be calling today, and it will dramatically increase your compliance rate.

4From here you get into the qualifying portion of your script, and you start by asking for permission to ask questions. This is another example of using a justifier, this time with the word “so.” “Just a couple of quick questionssoI don’t waste your time.” This gives a reason why you need to ask the prospect questions, and that reason is so you don’t waste their time. You always want to ask for permission to qualify.

5The last part of your open is always a transition. “Based on everything you said to me, this is a perfect fit for you.” This should be an anchor for you; you should know it by heart.

When it comes to the main body of your presentation, I can’t give you exact language patterns, as they vary too greatly from industry to industry. However, that being said, when I’m hired by a company to do a sales training, I make each salesperson create three or four language patterns for each of the Three Tens, and then I pool them all together and pick the best of the patterns to create one master script.

If possible, I strongly recommend that you do that yourself—recruiting other salespeople in your office to go through this exercise with you as a group.

To that end, let me give you a head start by providing you with a handful of powerful tips and guidelines for creating language patterns for the body and the close.

1The moment you finish the above transition, your first words in the main body should be the exact name of your product, process, program, or service you’re offering. Here’s an example of this that I wrote for the movieThe Wolf of Wall Street:

“Name of the company . . . Aerotyne International. It’s a cutting-edge, high-tech firm out of the Midwest, awaiting imminent patent approval on a next generation of radar detectors that have both huge military and civilian applications.”